Keir Starmer’s planned VAT raid on private schools is likely to breach human rights law because it singles out private education for the levy, a senior lawyer has said. The Telegraph has the story.
The Labour leader risks falling foul of European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) law over his party’s flagship policy, one of Britain’s top constitutional and human rights lawyers has warned.
Lord Pannick, who has taken on some of the U.K.’s most high-profile court cases, backed legal advice warning that making private schools subject to VAT was likely to breach ECHR law.
He told the Telegraph: “It would be strongly arguable that for a new government to impose VAT on independent schools would breach the right to education.
“That is because all other educational services will remain exempt from VAT and the charging of VAT on independent schools alone is designed to impede private education, and will have that effect.”
The KC and crossbench peer said that the Labour policy risked breaching two articles in the ECHR which protect the right to education.
He referred to legal advice written in response to Labour policies as far back as the early 1980s, when the country’s most senior lawyers warned that plans to end tax exemptions for private schools or abolish the institutions altogether would likely breach international human rights law to which Britain is signed up.
Seems the Left might be getting entangled in its own anti-democratic ‘human rights’ Blob.
Worth reading in full.
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